Step 9: Perform a Test!

Step 10: Put the LED Lights in the Car and Enjoy

Have you ever wished that your overhead interior light was brighter helping you find your dropped stuff. This instructable will show you how to easily improve the conventional interior light using some new age tchnology.

Why would I do it?

It's more energy efficient - uses less energy and generates less heat

It's much brighter than the standart bulbs

It's more stylish and makes your car look better

Is it expensive?

No - you have to invest in one metre of LED strip that costs less than 10EUR

Is it complicated?

No - you need some basic soldering skills and nothing more

More:

The lifetime of an LED element around 50,000 to 100,000 hours, so you won't have to worry about changing the LEDs in five years or so

Overall, nice instructable. Very creative use of the LED strips. As an experienced automotive LED guy, I usually cringe when I see automotive and LED strip mentioned together. That being said, I actually really like the idea to use them in this situation. They are perfect for an application like this (short on times, lower heat environment, non-safety critical, etc.). They also dramatically simplified your wiring and the amount of soldering that you had to do. Are there better quality options? Of course, but they require sourcing better LEDs, cutting perf-board etc. This is a great idea for a beginner. <br> <br>There are a few things that I feel I should mentioned having a lot of experience in automotive LEDs: <br> <br>First off, those LED strips are designed for 12V. Unfortunately, automotive electrical systems run at somewhere between 12.6 to around 14.5V depending on the vehicle model/is the system charging/etc. Second, automotive electrical systems are EXTREMELY noisy. It is not at all uncommon to see very short spikes in the 20-50V (or higher) range as inductive loads like relays, fans, electric motors, solenoids, etc. switch off and on. These short spikes can kill LEDs over time. They are often part of the cause for the dead LEDs that you see on tail lights even in OEM vehicles. <br> <br>First lets discuss the overvoltage problem. Since the supplied voltage fluctuates between 12.6 and 14.5V you are basically over-driving the LEDs. At 14.4V, you would be running them at 150-180% of their rated current causing them to dramatically heat up. Since the resistance of LEDs decreases as they get hotter, you will eventually enter thermal run away and the LEDs will die. Even if we assume the vehicle only runs at 12.6V you are still running them at 115-120% of their rated current. This is drastically shortening the life of the LEDs. If you want me to get into the math, I can. <br> <br>Now this isn't all doom and gloom. There is a simple fix. You simply need to add resistance to the array to balance things out. You have three options: The first one is you can replace the 150ohm SMD resistors with 270ohm ones. I'm not a huge fan of replacing SMD parts so your next option is a better one in my opinion. You can insert a single resistor before or after the array. The value of the resistor will vary based on the number of strings used but a simple trick around the calculation is to just use parallel 120ohm resistors. So if you had a single 3-led set just use a single 120ohm resistor. If you had dual sets (like shown in this instructable), parallel the 120ohm resistors. If you had three then triple and so on. This is easier that calculating the needed resistor and finding it. <br> <br>Now if you do the above your LEDs will likely last for a year or two if not more. If you want to really improve upon this then we need to take care of the voltage spikes as well. The easiest way to do this is to use a voltage regulator. Because the currents used here are very small you can use one of the tiny transistor sized (TO-92) regulators. Use a standard 12V regulator such as the LM317 (in the TO-92 not TO-220 style) and this will take care of both of the above issues in one go. No need to add resistance and the regulator will filter out the large voltage spikes. Ideally, you would want some stabilizing capacitors before and after the regulator (you actually have to if you use a low dropout regulator), but since space is a premium you can omit them unless lacking them presents a problem. <br> <br>Personally, if it was me I would just do the resistors because it is the easiest and takes care of 95% of the issues. This is not in a safety-critical location so if the LEDs fail then at worst you are without a dome light for a few days. If this were a taillight or turn signal then a voltage regulator is a MUST! <br> <br>

<p>I wish I had even a tenth of your automotive wiring / electrical knowledge.</p><p>I love (LOVE) extra lighting in cars, but I'm relegated to hunting down a garage / bodyshop / whoever(?) to install anything I want.</p><p>*sigh*</p>

this project is impressive. I am wondering how it affects your night vision while driving? that is usually the reason why lights are restricted on the interior of a car. please use caution as joggers and other people not wearing proper reflective materials may be harder to see while using these interior lights.. This may also cause problems with your car insurance if a modification to your vehicle causes bodily harm or property damage as a result. I love the design and will see if i can apply a dimmer function to the design. <br>thank you for the amazing idea. <br>

Interior lights should not be used while driving, no matter what kind. Passenger side map light etc may be OK, but if you are driving and need to look at something in the car closely enough that you need the light, you are going to be distracted enough to cause an accident whether the light is bright or dim.

I agree, the interior lights are primarily used when the vehicle is stationary and you do not need to look at the road as you would if you were driving. <br> <br>Having these LED lights inside the car won't cause any damage I suppose. <br> <br>About the dimming: The car has a dimming function that is part of its electrical system. When changing the lights from bulb to LED there is still this dimming that you can see when the lights power down from 100% to 30% of their luminosity. The rest of the 30% do not dim, they switch off immediately and this is because the LED is a diode that has a voltage drop on it and it won't operate if the voltage that you apply on it is less than this voltage drop. So when the voltage drops from 12V to 0V you see the dimming effect until it reaches 1V or 2V or whatever the diode voltage drop is.

It's a nice idea, but you can already buy LED interior lighting, for less than the cost of a strip, that requires no mods, no soldering, just the ability to change a bulb.<br> <br> <br> <a href="http://www.dealextreme.com/p/39mm-0-9w-42lm-6500k-3-smd-led-dome-white-light-bulb-dc-12v-51038" rel="nofollow">http://www.dealextreme.com/p/39mm-0-9w-42lm-6500k-3-smd-led-dome-white-light-bulb-dc-12v-51038</a>

<p>I ordered some LED interior direct replacement bulbs off of ebay.</p><p>They worked, but they were no brighter (like, at all) than the original incandescent ones---just a whiter colour.</p><p>That being said, I have heard that there are a wide range of quality and brightness in these replacement LEDs, so just because mine were dim, doesn't mean another manufacturer's might not be brighter. The problem is you have no idea how many lumens they put out before buying, And even if the seller states a lumens output, how do you know how many lumens your original bulbs produce?</p><p>This seems like a way brighter idea.</p>

You can find them at Walmart too, or even the larger truck-stop gas stations.&nbsp;

Yes this is all good and yes, you save time and money, and I could replace the stock bulbs the same way. Now it feels much more different for me personally.

PedroDaGr8, I agree. <br>Anyways direct driving LEDs is bad, and I can't stress this enough. <br>LED can make wide swings in their Currents for just a few Milli Volts. <br>Cree XM-L, Takes 1 Ampere at 3V... but goes a full double 2A at 3.3V.... now thats very sensitive. I bet at 14.4v your LEDs are getting 2~3X their rated power and are on the way to dying early. <br> <br>PedroDaGr8's Suggestion aside, i would suggest going for an Single 3W led (eg Seoul P4 driven at 700mA) and use DC-DC constant current sources. They take in anywhere from 11~16v and provide regulated outputs, and they're small enough to hide. You'll have to think about the Heatsinking tough.

<p>Yes and no. His might be...but there are LED strips that are rated to 12volts.</p>

<p>You can also add to &quot;more&quot; that if you accidentaly leave the light on overnight, It won't drain you car battery...</p>

very good

Awesome i have found some uses for those in the house as well!!!

Good job. Nice instructable. I done this to my truck last summer when i couldn't keep light bulbs from burning out quickly. Turned out to be a wiring issue, but its good now. The LED really brightens up the interior.

Am I wrong or shouldn't the LED's in the lower portion of this picture be turned 180 degrees to mirror the top LED's in relation to where the resistors are ?

Which picture are you talking about?

Wow this didn't end up where I posted it. Well it's the one showing the LED's laid out and wired up with 2 sets of three LED's. <br>

Bottom of two pictures in step #6. <br>

There wont be much of a difference in this case. If all the wires were flat, then in one of the cases you'd have to cross the +ve and -ve wires one on top of the other.

Very interesting project. I attempted to achieve a similar end by grafting a circular battery-powered LED light (had 28 super-bright white LED's around the perimeter of a 6&quot; circle, picture below. As I wanted to retain the existing dome light &quot;base&quot; containing the OFF/DOOR OPEN/ON switch, a lot of carving and bad language went into mating one fixture to the other, A 7806 regulator gave me the 6 VDC that the LED lamp's 4 AA batteries had originally provided. The finished fixture looked reasonable, and was extremely bright. However, The &quot;donor&quot; light proved to have been a poor choice, and the LED's died one by one. Eventually I removed it - not without some difficulty - and replaced the original fixture. <br> <br>The car is a Mazda Protege, so the overhead light is not large to begin with. Also, like many Japanese cars, all wires (3 in this case) to the light are &quot;hot&quot; - 13.8 VDC. Voltage is removed and a wire grounded elsewhere to turn on the dome light when a door is opened. <br> <br>This setup was a bit of a nuisance. North American cars are usually the opposite - all wires are dead until the door switch operates and turns the voltage on one wire to the done light &quot;on&quot;. Grounding is simple - one screw through the fixture to a metal tab inside the roof headliner. My &quot;donor fixture had a 3-position switch, turning on 3, half, or all of the 28 LED's. Mating this to the Mazda wiring was a bit of a pain. <br> <br>Your approach has the advantage of using as much of the existing physical light fixture as possible. I would agree with a previous poster who suggested using a voltage regulator in the LED supply circuit - LED's are not tolerant of repeated over-volting.

I see, belatedly, that I wrote &quot;28&quot; LED's when in fact the fixture had 24 LED's. Not that it makes much difference - it started out looking like a good idea, but the end result didn't last. If I could find &quot;factory&quot; style dome light that was larger than the existing Mazda one, I'd be tempted to put it in and try the method of using LED strip lights. Never have found one yet, however.

You can try and tape the LED strips otside the dome light. There are strips that have insulation and are waterproof.

Nice instructable! I did the same with my car a few months ago using green LED strips to go with my green footwell lighting. Everyone calls my car the spaceship now!

Good instructable! I will be book marking this for sure. In my car you can get LED's like you said and in any colour you want, but if I do this, I can use the exact kelvin rating that I want so it'll be SUPER bright!

A Zener diode works well to clamp the voltage. You can get a variety of different clamping voltages. I have not looked the prices up in a while, but I'm sure they are a few cents cheaper than a linear regulator like the LM317.

If you already have the strips and are feeling adventurous, this is a great project. <br> I got rectangular units from superbrightleds, 30 3528s in an array that came with the festoon base and fit (tightly) in my dome and map light housings. They are painfully bright, very helpful when you want to see something in the car. <br> Tose units come with regulation built in. They are rated from 9 - 14.9 VDC. Thei strip lights are also regulated and can take 10 - 30 VDC, so unless you are building your setup from scratch, normal voltage fluctuation shouldn't be a concern. <br> If I recall, the LM317T is a variable regulator(and can be used to regulate voltage, or even better for LEDs, current.) . I prefer variable, but if you need a fixed 12VDC regulator, I think that's the 7812. Using a resistor to lower voltage is very inefficient. It will probably work okay in a car system, but is generally inefficient and will drop your voltage below full brightness, especially when the car is off and running off battery voltage instead of alternator voltage. And when the car is off is usually when you are using the light.